


This Gun For Hire

by executrix, HermitLibrary_Archivist



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Crossover with Graham Greene, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-26
Updated: 2008-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-20 11:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4785554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HermitLibrary_Archivist/pseuds/HermitLibrary_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>by Executrix</p><p>Pastiching various works by Graham Greene. Avon (a lapsed Catholic) fancies Blake; so does Jenna. Vila fancies Avon, but life is never simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Gun For Hire

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Judith and Aralias, the archivists: This story was originally archived at [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hermit_Library), which was closed due to maintenance costs and lack of time. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2015. We posted announcements about the move and emailed authors as we imported, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hermitlibrary/profile). 
> 
> This work has been backdated to 26th of May 2008, which is the last date the Hermit.org archive was updated, not the date this fic was written. In some cases, fics can be dated more precisely by searching for the zine they were originally published in on [Fanlore](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Main_Page).
> 
> Previously published on Freedom City mailing list

1\. THE FALLEN IDOL

      "I blame the boarding schools and that," Vila said. "Take a bunch of boys, and put them so when they first twig they can have fun with their willies besides writing their names in the snow, there's nobody round but a bunch of other boys."

      "It's not a very nice thing to say about somebody," Gan said, pressing his lips together all the time not needed for actual utterance. "You shouldn't go around saying it if you don't have a good reason."

      "All right then. What is Avon wearing today?"

      "I can't think of a more tedious riddle," Jenna said.

      "I might notice if he were dressed up like Winter Solstice Father, but not otherwise," Cally said.

      "A pair of black trousers," Gan said. "A black gilet. A white shirt."

      "That's right!" Vila said triumphantly. Black leather trousers. The ones that are tighter than the ones with the bottoms flared to fit over boots.

      Eyebrows were raised to denote "Your point?" at three varying heights.

      "You've practically never seen his shirt sleeves before, have you? And the top button is undone. For Avon, that's practically the same as prancing about the room naked."

      "I'd have noticed that too," Cally said.

      "You take quite an interest, Vila," Jenna said, not unkindly.

      "I had to learn to watch people professionally," Vila said. "And the habit just lasted. Now, was there anything about that shirt that was out of the way?"

      "Avon kept pushing the sleeves up," Cally said.

      "There you are then. Learned that from the rozzers, asking questions. People always see more than they think they saw."

      "Vila, the fact that someone happens to take the wrong shirt out of the laundry pile..." Gan began.

      "Who was on watch when it was time for elevenses?"

      "Blake," Cally said.

      "Pity he had to miss out, wasn't it? He always gets up earliest, and often he doesn't have time to get breakfast."

      "No," Cally said. "Avon brought him a cup of tea and a slice of that cake he baked. That's when I saw him pushing up the sleeves."

      "Dammit," said Jenna.

      "I'll not believe it," Gan said. "It's not natural."

      "Dunno, takes all kinds to make a world," Vila said.

      "You spent a lot of time in boys' remand camps, didn't you?" Jenna asked.

      "Yes, I did, and all that sort of thing was just a gnat's eyelash better than getting duffed up for not doing it. That, and the big blokes liked to trade you around with their friends. Like cigarette cards."

      "They must have thought we were complete idiots, thinking that they could keep anything concealed," Cally said.

      "Worse than a small town, really," Vila said.

      Gan, sitting on the edge of one of the flight deck consoles, kicked aimlessly at the chair. "I don't know how I feel about taking orders from a bloke like that."

      "Now I wish I'd kept my fat mouth shut. Why should it make a difference?"

      "Well, you want a leader to be someone you look up to, you admire. How can you respect him now?"

      There were some issues--buckets of them, in fact--that Vila felt unequal to disagreeing with Gan about. It was easier to avoid political arguments. Limiters might malfunction.

      "I still can't help feeling bitter," Jenna said. "Well, Cally, at least perhaps it's for the best between me and you."

      //Perhaps,// Cally sent. //We wanted the same thing, and that made us rivals. And now that we're not going to get it, we needn't be rivals any more. That's good at least. I should like to have a human woman as a friend.//

      "We wanted something," Jenna said. "And that little tart got it."

      //Don't be unfair. He's taller than you.//

      2. OUR MAN IN HANAVA

      Spoken of, the Devil arrived. Blake was puzzled by the venom with which Jenna delivered the facially innocuous, "Hullo, Blake, you're looking fit and rested."

      "Zen just translated a communique from a fellow named Algernon Chetwynd-Powell," Blake said. "Free trader. Do you know him?"

      "Don't ask me, it seems I don't know anybody lately."

      "Names don't mean much when you're dealing with free traders," Vila said.

      "Well, he says he's got a job for us. Good money and not too dangerous."

      "It must be at least jolly dangerous or he'd do it himself," Gan said.

      "I'm sure we'll be fine," Blake said. "And it's a chance to give the Federation a real two-fingered salute without really harming anyone too much. I think it'll be fun."

      "And that'll probably be the excuse this Chetwynd-Powell gives when he doesn't pay us," Avon said. He had been tuning up one of the motors for the air purification filters, and appeared with the cuffs of the white shirt rolled twice, to just below his elbows. All eyes were drawn by this flagrant display.

      There was a smudge of dirt across one cheekbone. Vila moved forward to hand him a napkin to clean it off. He saw the expression on Blake's face, and figured that if he asserted public smudge-wiping rights, Gan would sick up all over somebody's shoes. And, with his luck, it would probably be his.

      Vila would have bid something, would have bid fairly high, for those rights. But the auction was closed. I wonder why he wears his wristchron on the right wrist, Vila thought--he isn't left-handed. Ambidextrous, more like.

      "From that name, we'll need someone rather posh to talk to him," Blake said. "Jenna, why don't we teleport down and bring him up here to negotiate? It'll go better on home territory."

      Avon looked surprised, but that was as far as it went. When the statute of limitations had passed for a casual yet well-envenomed barb (five seconds), it was necessary to admit that Vila had been right. Blast! Cally thought.

      I have not yet begun to fight, Jenna thought.

      "Could you do me a favor and change into something a bit more posh?" Blake asked. "It would be nice to impress him."

      A courteous request. Good God, could the battle be lost before it was fairly joined?

      "If you really want to impress him, something like a moth-eaten cashmere jersey, a fifteen-year-old tweed skirt, and a headscarf would be more the ticket," Avon said. "That's what those county types like."

      "You could dress up like Servalan," Vila said.

      "I'd enjoy seeing your impersonation, Jenna, but I don't think you ought to wear such high heels," Blake said, "And nothing that trails on the floor. I don't think we'll have to run for it, but you never know."

      Jenna returned a few minutes later (she didn't believe that it should take an hour to get into a dress and freshen up her makeup), in a hologram-patterned chiffon dress. The mid-calf skirt was full enough to permit ease of movement. It covered the tops of her low-heeled kidskin boots (lockpick in left heel, handcuff key in right).

      The self-belt cinched her waist attractively, and if necessary could cinch a hostage's hands until the professional equipment could be deployed. A compartment inside the belt held a few tiny gold ingots as a contingency fund. There were two pouches sewn into the hem. One for a spare teleport bracelet, and one for a semi-functioning throwdown teleport bracelet, with coordinates hardwired to "Nowhere, Actually."

      Not a good idea to mix up the real bracelets and the fakes. The first batch of fakes had been made up with a green communicator light instead of a red one, but it turned out that Gan was color-blind, so the next batch had a row of bronze-colored crystals glued around the edge of the communicator light.

      The capital city of Epsifarl is Hanava. Or, to be more precise, the only place that sentients live on Epsifarl is Hanava, a diluted-puce city half as old as last Thursday. It's a ghastly place, where the only money is new money and a leading industry is the manufacture and sale of over-life-sized nude statuary with real ermine pubic hair.

      At least the female statues don't have any bits that go up and down on hydraulics. The gold-plated statue of the bull outside the Stock Exchange building has been known to inspire immediate admission to enclosed religious orders.

      But the Epsifarlese don't have much time for the Federation, which grants them at least a bye into the second round in the Rebel Alliance Tourney.

 

3\. GETTING TO KNOW THE GENERAL

      Blake had a strong visual image of what Chetwynd-Powell would have to look like: bristling cavalry moustache, ancient pin-striped suit with operable sleeve buttons, handkerchief tucked into the wrist. Talked with a haw-haw voice, black silk umbrella (or at least swagger stick) jammed up his ass.

      Therefore, as Blake's gaze swept the room, he was as disconcerted by the absence of any possible person of that ilk. It was like being Joan of Arc, asked to drop a dime on the Dauphin in palpably Dauphin-challenged premises. But it was obvious who was in charge around here: the fat guy with the badly-cut hair, baggy eyes, and chin collection.

      He lounged in an oversized, overstuffed armchair that wasn't quite big enough, his massive thighs spread, revealing the rubbed inner seams of his none-too-clean gray suit. One hand hovered ominously, threatening to ease himself with a good scratch. A cigar, of the amplitude you would expect of a Hanavanese Freudian symbol, lolled at the corner of his mouth. It was a very good cigar--hand-rolled Hanavas always are.

      "Ta-ra!" this personage said. "Good to see you, Blake. Have a look around the place. Pierre, show 'em their room." A slender young man of graceful carriage--his name tag read Passeceaux, P.--gave a heartrending smile. Light-brown hair tumbled over his forehead, threatening to eclipse one amber eye.

      "Actually, we've brought a teleport bracelet for you," Blake said. "We'd like you to come aboard the Liberator to negotiate. After all, you'll have to inspect the facilities, see if they're suitable."

      "The damned want crème de menthe frappes, Sunshine," Chetwynd-Powell rumbled.

4\. MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND?

      "Very well, then, we'll stay. But I shall call for some reinforcements from my ship."

      "Smashing! I see you brought your conk with you--what's she called, by the way? My three will take her in hand, take her shopping--Sweetheart, get anything you like, put it on my tab--go and get a massage, get their faces done, whatever girls do."

      Jenna struggled to keep her face composed. The crew's rules of war, arrived at after endless debate (well, arrived at by Blake saying things at length, Avon taking exception to them at greater length, and everyone doing what Blake had said in the first place anyway), called for playing up and playing along with whatever happened.

      By the look of the three bimbos who glided up in welcome, it would be much easier to keep a straight face after their beauty parlor session. It would indeed be hard to move a muscle behind all that plaster. And wouldn't it be wonderful to walk right past a Federation security scanner and be rendered unrecognizable?

      "Avon, Vila, come on over," Blake told his wrist. "Mr. Chetwynd-Powell wants to conduct the discussion here. Cally, Gan, keep in close orbit."

      A few minutes later (time enough for a quick change, a weapons check, and accumulation of a few small items that might be needed on the road) they appeared, slightly out of synch with the white lines drawn around them. No one seemed to notice Vila much, which was all right with him.

      Avon wore the leather trousers--the somewhat less tight ones, which fit over the boots which he thought he might need to put in. And the jacket with, as of that point in time, the most metallic bits and bobs attached to it. Then he looked at Blake, a gaze of such patent adoration and blatant provocation that he might as well have had a pink triangle badge pinned to his jacket.

      Oh. He did. Blake flinched when he saw it.

      "Brought the muscle this time," said Chetwynd-Powell. "Not my place to tell you how to run your mob, but I wouldn't feel awfully safe if my back was only being watched by a bender like yon wrapped in the bin liner." Even Blake flinched at this uncharitable description of the Wardrobe Room's most luxurious black leather gear.

      "For you to get to him, I'd have to move over, and I'm going to stay right here," Avon said, looking directly at Jenna who was providentially located in eyeshot.

      "Carries a big gun, but. Give it over, Sunny Jim."

      Avon turned to Blake. "Commander?"

      Blimey, I'm getting my Solstice present early this year, Blake thought. "Yes, all right, we're all friends here. Let him have it--that is, put your gun in the gun locker."

      "Go round to the kitchen, boys. The housekeeper always has a pint and a pasty for the chauffeurs and that."

      Blake nodded imperceptibly, and they left. Vila memorized for later reference the blaze of Avon's eyes and the set of the teeth just visible through infinitesimally parted lips.

      "What exactly is it you want us to do?"

      "Little job of carriage," Chetwynd-Powell said. "We've sold all the pieces for building a hovercraft factory to JaVitz, it's an asteroid out in Sector Eight. They know they're not supposed to have non-regulated personal transport, but they reckon they're too far out of the Federation's way for them to get caught doing it.

      They've got factories for clothes and dishes and such, light industry, so they know what an assembly line is, and their fossil fuel and electrical supplies are stable enough. So what you're supposed to do is carry the crates over--it's just a couple of days ship time--load them down planet, jam the cables into wherever you jam cables, and break the bottle of champagne when the first hovvie dribbles off the line."

      "You're paying a lot for a pantechnicon," Blake said.

      "Oh, aye, them on JaVitz could be wrong about how little the Federation cares. Since you've the fastest ship, and you're not just an engineer but a bad lad--or other way round--you seemed like the best for the job. But take it or leave it, it's nowt to me."

      Must be owt, Blake thought. Hundred thousand credits, half in advance--and, yes, the transfer did clear, we checked. But it could be interesting, shooting the federation in its pocketbook. Perhaps the way to show people that they need freedom is by showing them how the Federation has oppressed them economically as well. Maybe the man who can buy his own hovercraft will also start circulating Tarriel Cell-compatible political manifestoes.

 

5\. IT'S A BATTLEFIELD

      You couldn't tell what the names on their badges were, they had a bit of elastic stretched over the name plate. They did not, on first impression, appear to have much that was novel and interesting to say about Wittgenstein.

      "Is it true what Fat Andy said? You're queer?"

      "Yes," Avon said. "But no free samples are being distributed this month."

      And now one of them was just behind Avon, the other in front, closer than he liked.

      "Can't see how your boss puts up with it either. If I was him, I wouldn't fancy going through the door with you behind me."

      "No, you wouldn't," Avon said. "Truly."

      It seemed necessary to prove this, which he did by bringing the heel of his boot down, with extreme prejudice to small bones, on the foot of the man behind him, and using the throat of the one in front as a resistance device for his left forearm. He kicked each fallen body just once, in the ribs, and quit while he was still on the perilous edge of control. Dammit, how many fistfights had he purchased with that badge? It wasn't coming off for the benefit of anyone like them, but he was tired of the bother already.

      Vila emerged from the corner next to the huge industrial refrigerator. He opened the refrigerator, took out a couple of bottles of whatever looked the stickiest and sickliest, and poured the contents over the fallen heroes and into a puddle between them.

      "Wet floors. Falling hazards. Someone ought to contact the Work Safety and Health Authority. I mean, you did slip and fall, didn't you? Two hard men like you couldn't get done over by a poofter."

      Avon sketched a salute in recompense for the somewhat belated show of support.

      In their line of work, it was always advisable to raid a well-stocked refrigerator, you never knew when the next meal was going to come along. But, on the other hand, it seemed more advisable to take the plates and bottles somewhere else.

      Mr. Passeceaux checked his clipboard, and discovered that they had been assigned a room over the hovercraft hanger. It wasn't such a bad room, as servants' quarters go. Fortunately the institutional green paint couldn't depress them, they felt fairly bad already. It didn't matter how small the closet was, or that the drawers in the chest of drawers stuck, because they hadn't brought any spare clothes.

      Paradise enow. Avon threw his jacket, badge and all, over the back of one of the chairs. Vila was entranced by his luck--shirtsleeve sightings two days running! This time, the shirt was dark blue.

      Avon had finished slicing bread and cold meat (Vila thought he could identify roast beef and boiled mutton, but you never knew) and arranging them on plates, and gave a gruntlet of pleasure. "Have a taste, Vila," he said, holding out a kitchen knife with three wedges of tomato lying on their sides. "This is the best fresh tomato I've had since--well, I don't know when." Oh just stab me, make a day of it, Vila thought.

      "You can have the top bunk. I'm not going to get into another fight with anyone else today."

      Neither of them slept much. Vila knew what Avon was thinking about but Avon didn't know what Vila was thinking about.

       6. CONFIDENTIAL AGENT

      There was no expression in the woman's wolfen yellow eyes. None on her round face. It was just a job for her, as she approached the slab and poured the molten mass onto the shrinking yet resolute flesh of the naked body before her. Jenna would not cry out. And it had just been a job as blow after blow from the impassive woman's palm had resounded on that same flesh.

      "Don't you love seaweed wraps?" said Doreen, the junior (and therefore highest-status) concubine. "A nice massage to break up the cellulite, a wrap for lymphatic drainage, maybe a yoga class afterwards."

      "Nooo, let's not do yoga class," said Myrville. "Let's get Jenna a makeup lesson! Jenna, you have such lovely bone structure, I bet you could be really pretty if you just took care of yourself a little."

      "You have to take care of yourself, otherwise men stray," said Kandace, the conk at greatest risk of involuntary early retirement. Jenna shuddered at the thought of a non-straying Chetwynd-Powell. If it were up to her, she'd point him out the door. To the airlock.

      I've done worse than this for the cause (...for Blake...) before. I will disguise the humiliation I feel at once again being treated as a brainless whore instead of a valued member of an organization that has a serious purpose. I will open my mouth only to grin idiotically, and I will remember that useful military information may well emerge as part of the muddy stream of inanities.

      Jenna knew perfectly well that once you throw away your pride, then you've not much left. It's even worse to throw away your pride in pursuit of the plainly impossible. She knew that though Blake was obviously fated to be killed in pursuit of the plainly impossible overthrow of the Federation (and was likely fated to do so in good or at least congenial company) he would never throw away his pride. She knew that she should be above taking Kerr Avon's leavings. She knew that she was going to have Blake by any means this side of forcible rape.

      Anyway, On the Road doesn't count.

      So she put on the most tasteful negligee she had been able to buy in all of Hanava (the mind boggles) and lolled on the immense circular bed as Blake deployed the wristchron attachment that checked for bugs, recording, and surveillance devices.

      Clean. And the immense circular overhead mirror was apparently that and nothing more. As Jenna debriefed him on her newly gained knowledge of Epsifarlese geopolitics and economics, Blake searched through the wardrobe and chest of drawers in the guest suite. He couldn't find anything that he liked, so he put on a pair of midnight-blue silk pajamas with a fine edging of gold braid and climbed into the bed, parallel to the center but away from it.

      "I suppose Chetwynd-Powell will be terribly upset if he arranges this--guest room of ill repute--and we don't make love. It could be essential to the success of the mission, in fact."

      "Can't see why," Blake said sleepily. "It's a business deal. I don't think he'd give a monkey's if we screwed, roller skated, or did petit point."

      "I hate petit point. I don't like anything ladylike. I especially don't like hanging about waiting to be asked." Jenna slid over toward Blake (a complex process, satin sticks to satin) and put her hand on his chest.

      Blake looked around wildly for roller skates. "Jenna, I'm very flattered, but this isn't a good idea."

      "God, do you think I don't know that?" she said, moving to embrace him. Satin sticks to satin. He put his hand up and stroked her hair. Silk.

      "You don't have to do a thing. Leave it up to me--and that." She moved fully on top of him, to kiss him. How delightfully trim her waist was. He could almost span her back with just one of his hands, placed across her waist. His other hand wasn't big enough to cover her bottom, which was so warm and soft and full under the nightgown that he didn't mind the futility of the endeavor. How wonderfully soft and rich her breasts felt pressing against his chest. Nothing about her felt tense or hard.

      It doesn't take a well-reasoned five-year plan to rouse the rabble, Jenna thought. Cheap appeals to emotion will do as well.

 

7\. ENGLAND MADE ME "Mr. Restal," said the tall, extremely ugly man (who nevertheless had fine eyes and a gentle manner) "Have you got a moment? There are some shipping manifests I'd like to go over with you."

      "Shipping manifests? Ain't never heard it in the pluperfect subjunctive before," Vila said as they trudged down a corridor.

      "They'd twig if I said etchings," said the Sergeant who was in charge of Wheel D.

      "Is there anywhere to go?"

      "If you can't afford to be particular, there always is. I heard what happened, sorry I couldn't be there and sort that lot out. Not that I could have explained why, mind. But made it a matter of discipline within the crew and seen that it didn't happen again."

      "Avon sorted them all right on his own."

      Somehow the key to Storeroom 16 had been lost long ago, and the door could be latched from the inside but not locked from the outside. It was filled with miscellaneous junk, some items of which could conveniently be pushed under the door handle to sound an alarm if anyone pushed against the latch. So they selected a few items to provide a shred of privacy.

      There was a small cooling unit, with about half a case of beer in it, and an envelope taped to the front. If you drank any of the beer, you were supposed to put money in the envelope. No names, no slate, of course. How could anyone collect money for nonexistent beers consumed in a place you weren't supposed to be?

      A table and some rump-sprung swivel chairs, tilting at crazy angles, had migrated there. The chairs had already been officially thrown out, so why shouldn't they be someplace that didn't exist?

      They drank the beer, and it was obvious that there wouldn't be time for anything at all elaborate, they'd have to return as soon as possible to the pretense that they were merely skiving off with an alibi beer.

      So they kissed a few times, disarranged as few garments as absolutely needed for the purpose, and spent a diverting few minutes with pricks and hands entwined. Then they returned their garments to order and sat back down, with another alibi beer. This time, Vila stood the round.

      "They say this is sordid," the ugly Sergeant said, "and so I suppose it is. Dammit, Vila, you seem like a nice bloke, why wouldn't they let us go somewhere with red checked tablecloths, have a good dinner, a nice roast ganguahen with sage and onion, glass of red wine, and spend the evening? Spend the night, if it comes to that. Nice big bed and a feather comforter, and not have to do anything if we didn't fancy it."

      They didn't have very big beds on the Liberator, and they would seem smaller with two people in them. "It doesn't always help," Vila said. "Right now, I don't feel downtrodden, just jealous."

      "Oh aye. A fellow on your ship?"

      "So to speak. He's here now."

      "The dark parcel that's so well wrapped up? Well, wearing that badge takes some nerve, I've got give him that."

      "He's in love with Blake," Vila said, months of misery compressed into a single phrase. "I don't know what Blake's playing at, it'll all end in tears, he's not like us really, and Avon's not like anyone really."

      "It does seem you have a problem. But at least if he admits that he's in love with another man, you might have a look-in. Try being in love with someone who's not even the tiniest bit bent."

      "Well, who hasn't?"

      "At first I thought his wife was a right bitch, got quite a tongue when she cares to use it, which is usually, but after awhile I learned that she was all right in her heart. In fact she can be nicer than him. He's not as nice as he likes to think."

      "Avon's not always as horrible as he'd like you to think, he can be quite sympathetic when he thinks you won't be able to tell."

      "Big organization?"

      "No, it's just Blake and five of us. That's enough so we can divide up into factions and hate each other, not enough to have a big enough faction that we don't care and just ignore the others. I'll tell you what it's like.

      If a great, hairy, smelly, ten-tentacled alien came on board (not that the Federation didn't go around wiping them up whenever they found them), then Blake would try to recruit its friends to fight the Federation. Jenna would tell him not to, the alien must have a side deal with Servalan. Cally--you haven't seen her, she's an Auron, not a person--she'd brew up something nice and gray and slimy and sit down with it for a good natter. Humans, right boil on the bum, eh? I'd probably steal its wallet, or at least make sure where it kept its valuables. And Avon would see if a tentacle job was on offer."

      "What's your problem, then? If you say he's none too straight and none too particular--well, you know what I mean, not to be tactless--sooner or later you're bound to have a look in."

      "That's what they say about the difference between a slut and a bitch, innit? Everyone's had a slut, and a bitch will do it with anyone--except you."

 

8\. JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

      The gift of insight, or self-insight, if it is not combined with charity, least of all toward one'sself, is like the gift of an exercise wheel to an intelligent hamster who is unlikely to be paroled any time soon. Lots of heavy going-around-in-circles action, when there's nothing else to do. Not a lot of forward progress.

      Avon was not familiar with the societal norm of being one's own best friend. If he were ever to subscribe to any societal norm, he wouldn't pick that one first. If anything, he was his own Security dossier.

      So he knew that he was spectacularly unlikely to remain what the world called "faithful" and he called "anesthetized." If anyone had been willing to listen, he would have pointed out the gigantic fraud perpetrated on those who were already sleeping with all one person they fancied, against those who were in possession of a rather smaller complement of what they desired.

      If he was getting what he wanted from a partner, then he was usually generous enough to be willing to share. And if all he was getting was a cold shoulder and a colder bed, he hoped he would not be mean enough to be gratified by the denial of those dubious pleasures to everyone else.

      Avon was forever being captivated by something: a glance, unusual-colored eyes, the way clothing draped between someone's shoulder and hip, a turn of phrase or a tone of voice.

      Indeed, later on, although his emotions toward Tarrant were not unreservedly positive (forced to select just one simplistic word, he would have voted for "loathing"), he was hopelessly enthralled by the young pilot's wrists. It was the prominence of the radius, the outer bone. It made him look as if he hadn't grown into his paws.

      Avon was always being surprised. Although after calculating he would have said that most sexual experiences, like most experiences of all kinds, were disappointing, some of the most interesting things happened in some of the oddest places. And he often found himself in the company of people who were too stupid to have five minutes' worth of entertaining conversation, and when there weren't four for bridge.

      Unfortunately, some of the least interesting things happened in the most expected places. There they were, newly and passionately in love, with a perfectly nice suite to themselves and a nice job of engineering to occupy the days.

      Blake had a respectful group of forelock-pulling helots he could amiably order about as they re-configured an old cinderblock building into a modern hovercraft factory. Avon had an interesting CADCAM computer to burn in.

      Blake thought that they had a lot of getting used to each other to do, and thought the process of accommodation would be fun. That was the idea--establish a routine. Learn what your partner likes, then take care of your partner first so you won't have to worry, enjoy a delightful controlled fusion reaction, and then drift off to a sleep wonderfully unencumbered by worries.

      Avon cursed himself for every kind of fool for being stupid enough to dig this pit for himself and pull Blake into it with him. Why hadn't he gone beyond the calculation of his need for diversion, and the probability of his being able to translate mutual sexual attraction into consent, to the next and increasingly obvious question of whether they would be at all compatible sexually?

      Of course they wouldn't, Avon concluded. Neither of us cares at all to compromise, we're already resentful as hell for the extent we have compromised, and it'll only get worse as it goes on.

      They didn't even argue about sleeping in the same bed. Avon knew that everyone expected it, so Blake never even knew that one concession had been charged to his account. Blake slept, placid as a tomb elegy or a chunk of concrete, straight down the center of the bed, wrapped in all the bedclothes.

      Avon slept, eventually, restlessly even then, diagonally across the bed, wrapped in all the bedclothes. A separate swaddle of sheets and duvets could have been arranged for each, of course, but it hadn't happened, so daylight struggles that had to be shelved for romantic reasons were displaced into an arena where they could be claimed to be unconscious.

      In fact, one of the things he really liked about sex was how energetic he felt afterwards, and how receptive he felt to ideas. He had spent many nights stretched out next to someone or other who had been asleep for hours, and worked through technical problems. One thing he really missed about Anna was the companionable way in which they would lie in bed, after conceding that at last there were no more sensations to be wrung out of exhausted nerves, each holding a palmtop and a stylus, each taking notes or sketching.

      There was the entire issue of the Blakean pajama. Right now Avon could stir up some tenderness at the sight of the eggshell-crisp cotton, thinly striped in yellow and brown, short of leg and sleeve. Before long, he suspected, he would be unable to deny that they were the ugliest pajamas he had ever seen. Blake probably had some even worse ones saved up for winter, but Avon frankly doubted they would last that long.

      Blake would appear, freshly washed himself, in freshly washed pajamas. And after making love, he would retrieve the pajamas from wherever they had landed, and put them back on. I ask you, Avon said to himself.

      If you had to have a body at all, and couldn't sleep in your own bed in reasonable comfort, why not make use of the body's useful property of being covered with skin, and spend the night with all of your body pressed to all of someone else's?

      Although (given a choice) he never wore any himself, Avon was not inherently opposed to the idea of nightclothes. He would quite have enjoyed seeing Blake in--say for instance a short wine-colored toga with a broad gold band at the edge.

      Avon experienced (though hardly suffered from) a kind of textile vertigo: it made him dizzy to explore the edges of fabric. One hand caressing a partner's body through the cloth, the other acting more directly. The bitter taste of silk counterpointed with the faint salt of slightly moist skin. But as for crisp cotton shortie pajamas...passion-killers.

      Blake often felt Avon gazing at him, usually at some part of his body that seemed to Blake to have little immediate relevance. Often, it made him uncomfortable. "Premeditation" and "screwing" didn't seem to sort well together. And raspberry jam was all very well in its place. On top of a slice of buttered toast.

9\. A SENSE OF REALITY

      Between their first and second kisses, back on the Liberator, Avon knew that it was essential to establish some ground rules. "You know that this mustn't, can't, change anything practical. You must continue to treat me...(with the same cavalier disregard for human survival)...exactly as you would for any other mission. You must send whom you like and that includes sending me if it seems a good idea. And I'll continue to (play Black, no matter how many times one says "that's not going to work," it usually proves correct) challenge you just as I did before, but not on any privileged ground."

      Blake was flooded with horror, at the realization of what it could mean, not only to lose Avon but to feel responsible for his loss. "But how could I do that? What would I feel knowing that you were in danger?"

      "That I will fight for you, and if I must then I will die at your side."

      Blake was so moved that he swept Avon into their second kiss, a monument of passion.

      As much as he enjoyed the kiss, Avon's blood ran cold. Colder than usual, he thought. I can't believe I said that. I can't believe he didn't laugh in my face. I can't believe I didn't laugh in my face. Actually I meant it. All communication with my inner Drama Queen must cease at once. It's bad enough Blake trying to get me killed without becoming his accomplice.

      "And now you'll come down to B Deck and join us," Blake said, after an interlude of sexual activity that Blake found revelatory and Avon rated as banal, but not without its emotional interest. (Cally and Avon were the only ones to have taken cabins on C Deck.) "You'll share with me, of course. I know, we can knock out the wall between 15 and 17, have a new place of our own."

      Avon would have told him, if he'd thought that Blake would listen, that love can last, but only with effort. It's like painting a bridge. As soon as you think you're done, you have to start over again, and by then you've probably forgotten why it was so important to go from that place to the other one anyway.

      What he did put into words: "You're not going to like this, Blake, but you'll have to agree I'm right when you hear me out. Now you think we ought to make love every night, don't you?"

      "Of course. Now you really belong to me."

      Blake would say that, wouldn't he? Oh God. It was bad enough having to be a human being without owning them too.

      Blake slid one hand up the nape of Avon's neck and ruffled his hair. "Although no doubt there will be times when a little thing like a pursuit ship or two, or a guerilla action on the ground, will get in the way. But under normal circumstances, yes, of course."

      "Well, we shouldn't. We'll both enjoy it a great deal more if we permit some scarcity value to operate. Tuesdays and Fridays, say."

      "But today's Tuesday."

      "And we already have. The 'night' in 'every night' is merely a metonymy." Blake didn't ask for a definition, for which Avon was grateful--he knew it was something to do with formal rhetoric, but wasn't quite sure which figure was which.

      Blake in bed was exactly as Avon could have predicted. Preoccupied, sweet, generous, vanilla. Healthy-minded (Avon strove not to say "limited.") Interested in sex as an expression of affection, and occasionally for simple release, but it wasn't anything to which he ever gave much thought, much less anything for which he had developed an analysis.

      "If I'd ever had any taste for being tied up," Blake said, "I would have lost it as soon as chaps with guns developed an obsessive interest in handcuffing me. Can't see what it does for you. And I don't see why you have to pretend you don't want to when this was all your idea."

      "It's not to do with--well, not entirely to do with--unwillingness or even submission. Or perhaps with submission to the experience rather than to the partner. And there's quite a difference between cast-iron fetters and a bit of black velvet ribbon! But, you see, well...you see how your body moves under my hands."

      "Christ, yes."

      "That's your body trying to dispel the feeling, to dissipate the intensity. I'd rather concentrate it. There's always further to go," said Avon, who sometimes thought that he was at the edge of a great revelation, and was disappointed when all that happened was another orgasm, and who thought that you never knew where the barriers were, until you choked the throttle all the way back and flew through them.

      Was there? Blake wondered. What was wrong with what they already had? "Tell you one thing, though. I won't bother asking you for a promise, it would hurt too much for you to refuse to give it. So all I can do is tell you that if you are ever unfaithful to me, then that will be the end. That's my promise to you."

      Oh, what the hell did I expect, Avon thought. I knew who I was dealing with.

 

10\. THE BOMB PARTY Perfectly simple. There were a few places where the building needed a door gouged here, windows rerouted there, some of the electrical wiring had to be rerouted, there weren't enough toilets unless the plant worked three lighter-staffed shifts a day instead of two fully-staffed ones. It cost less to send Liberator off on a day trip to rent some Porta-Sans than to build more bogs or keep the building open 24/7.

      Avon didn't think that Just in Time ordering made much sense when every delivery was liable to interception by Federation pursuit ships, so he got Blake to send Liberator off again to get some basic stock and, more importantly, machining jigs to vertically integrate more of the production process. The CADCAM package installed on the factory's computer network was clumsy, redundant in all the wrong places, exposed in others, so Avon rewrote some of it, which meant rewriting the manual and the online Help system...

      Blake didn't think much of the quality control system, there wasn't time to fix it, so he had to concentrate on making sure that the hovvies didn't explode when they were rear-ended. If that meant that sometimes the doors wobbled and the paintwork was bubbled, well, so be it.

      So that's what took up the days that separated the Tuesdays from the Fridays. By hiring two sets of guards to spy on each other, and triangulating their reports with the data he intercepted from their reports to Chetwynd-Powell (and God knows who else), Avon could get a fairly good idea of what was really happening.

      They say that in the pre-Atomic Soviet Union, the Assistant Naval Attache at any embassy was guaranteed to be a KGB man. Well, so naturally was most of the staff, but the Assistant Naval Attache was the semi-official point man, you always knew where to find a spy when you needed one.

      Avon was pretty sure that SOMEONE would have to be the Federation representative, but it took time to work out who it was. (He had dark suspicions of the catering manager, but that had to do with the fluid dispensed in the canteen under pretense of tea.) And it took more time to work out what she was up to. Simple sabotage, nothing fancy.

      Which was lucky, because he could jury-rig some primitive motion detectors, but nothing very fancy, and Avon's patch-through to ORAC didn't work all that well, and it would have been hard to process a series of diagnostics more sophisticated than "By the way, there are some blobs of plastic explosive stuck underneath some of the equipment."

      He took the time to find out how many ("Eight, plus or minus one with a confidence level of 75.8%?), to grab a stylus-sized spectrometer and calibrate it for the commonest types of plastic explosive, and to run to the CADCAM unit, take it off line, and check that the Uninterruptable Power Source was on. The spectrometer matched for plastique inside one of the drawers. Avon found something amorphous and sticky inside there, pulled it out, and tossed it out the window. Nothing happened immediately, proving either that it had a time fuse or wasn't, in fact, explosive.

      Blake. Where was Blake? Avon pulled the nearest fire alarm and ran through the factory building. There was a thump and a flash of fire as the rejected bit of explosive detonated and caught some grass on fire.

      The skeleton start-up crew ran out of the building. Avon found Blake at Station Five of the assembly line, wielding a fire extinguisher and trying to find the blaze.

      "Let's get outside," Avon said conversationally. "There are six or seven explosive charges planted in the building." The spectrometer glowed green and whined.

      Blake seized the spectrometer, thinking, how the hell does he know? Well, if I'd been thinking with my brain I suppose I would have been more suspicious myself. But why didn't he tell me--did he think I was so thick I wouldn't understand? Did he want to defeat the plot all by himself, and present it to me, like a cat laying a dead mouse on the pillow?

      "If it's sabotage, the charges should be planted where they can do maximum damage," Avon said. The spectrometer showed two charges in the room: one in the middle of the conveyor belt for Station Five, one in the inspection screen. Neither lump of explosive was courteously provided with an accurate read-out of its time to detonation. The best tactic, in light of the known properties of bio-plastique, seemed to be to dig them out of their hiding places, divide the lumps into the tiniest possible pieces, and scatter them in the least sensitive locations--scatter them behind them, like Hansel and Gretel's bread crumbs, as they ran out the door. (Bio-plastique gains strengh as it grows, and weakens as it is divided.)

      Some of the bits went off, and some of them encountered flammable materials to feed them. The other bombs went off, nearby, and some but not very much of the roof came down, accompanied by a lot of the plaster from the ceiling, and there was a shower of glass splinters and some of Drill Press #12 became shrapnel.

      Blake and Avon hit the ground, rolling over as each tried to cover the other. Blake, resigned, thought, what a way to go, eh? Avon found himself topping off an Act of Contrition with a Hail Mary. He was absolutely astonished.

      Moments later, it could be discerned that neither of them was seriously hurt. They sat up, brushed off the worst of the debris, and went to supervise the employees who were putting out the fires and hauling out the twisted girders and broken window panes.

      Avon ran to the CADCAM unit. Some cartons of printout acetates had caught fire, and choking black smoke was being pumped out by the backup ventilation unit. Once the smoke cleared, Avon--feeling really frightened for the first time in the whole incident--checked the UPS and took the computer back on line. Its Diagnostics unit sounded sleepy and irritated, as if it had been roused from a nap it hadn't wanted to take in the first place, and told Avon that it was perfectly all right.

      Blake was making sure that the three injured employees--one broken arm, one case of glass cuts, one minor smoke inhalation casualty--were reassured until the medical unit arrived.

      "Everything's fine!" Avon said. "The computer's perfectly all right. As for that other rubbish, I'm sure you can put it right in an hour tomorrow."

      They never figured out exactly who had been involved, but they didn't much care either. Two spectacularly blown-up bodies turned up, although there was no way of telling if they were novice plastiqueurs or simply two poor buggers who got in the way of the sabotage. Four employees vanished, either as part of the conspiracy, or for reasons of their own.

      The JaVitz Personal Transport Corporation fixed up the mess, installed alarms, hired a lot of guards, and put in an insurance claim, which was denied because it was pretty obviously a political job. Blake and Avon went back to Epsifarl.

11\. A BURNT-OUT CASE Job done, second half of the fee collected (although there was a lot of trouble getting the wire transfer cleared, Chetwynd-Powell tried to stop payment on it out of general principle), the crew gathered in Hanava for debriefing. This time, Gan and Vila shared the room with the bunk beds.

      Chetwynd-Powell couldn't figure out Cally's place in the scheme of things, so he had her assigned to one of the visiting conk suites. It wasn't as nice as the room assigned to Blake and Jenna, but Fat Andy didn't think Blake would be put off his stroke if he dropped in to visit his putative junior-grade conk.

      Since none of them except Blake particularly cared whether Avon was there or not, he had no trouble arranging a free afternoon. The church in Epsifarl was fairly nice, a nicer church than Avon was used to. It was a relief to see the statues of the saints clothed and apparently immobile.

      To preserve his options, Avon bought a rosary (which he would certainly need if he chose to make even a metatag version of a confession for the last two and a half decades) from a table near the front door. He even dropped money for it, into the glass jam jar with a slot cut into its metal lid. He wondered if programming ORAC to recite his penance for him would count. He decided it wouldn't.

      He was surprised but not displeased that it was the Latin Mass, and he heard it devoutly. (He had always thought the Standard translation was a bit common anyway.) He did not feel communicative in any sense of the term, so he didn't confess or go forward for Communion. He didn't think much of the clerical talent--that was better in the old days.

      When the small congregation had thinned out, and a nice elderly lady had been baulked of her intention to give him a cup of instant coffee and some arrowroot biscuits, he lit every candle they had in the place (and paid for those too), went back to the pew with its sticky dark brown varnish, knelt, and propped his head on his crossed arms on the pew in front of him.

      Oh, my God, he began. I'm not sorry for anything, so what am I doing here. I'm sorry for the way things turned out, but not for what I did. I'm here to make a vow because that way You will know what's in my heart. How ridiculous--if You exist at all, You must know that anyway, whether I'm kneeling here or fetching some pillow cases from the laundry room.

      So You know that, at this moment, I love Roj Blake desperately and I know that I'm doing him no good at all and therefore I will give him up and let him hate me now instead of himself later. Keep him safe even at the expense of my heart. (Avon flinched at that--he thought he was stirring himself up to too high a pitch.)

      But by the same token You must also know that it's as easy to manipulate one's own emotions as to provoke a discharge of any other kind. And You must know how afraid I am that soon I'll get sick to death of him, just as I always have done before. And that I might have a longer attention span if I didn't dread so much that someone might get sick to death of me before I could ruin the love affair myself. After all, I understand this, and I'm hardly omnipotent. And if You maintained much rooting interest in Blake's well-being, You would have made sure he couldn't keep putting himself in harm's way.

      In other words, I'm negotiating from a position of weakness with a Deity who probably doesn't exist at all, and probably can't do a damn thing anyway. I have nothing to offer and can't stop whatever You're going to do. It must have been picoseconds since You've gotten a better offer.

       12. THE POWER AND THE GLORY

      The Federation's attitude toward religion changed over time. "Evolved" would hardly be the word--"flipped around to keep people off balance" is more like it.

      Although the opiates of the masses were delivered through the water supply and medical laser, at least some Federation leaders believed that the hope of heaven would provide additional tractability. So, by making religion unfashionable, inconvenient, and expensive, the Federation was able to discourage faith or at least practice by many people.

      If the churches kept in their place, and preached frequent sermons about Rendering Unto Caesar, and if sly and pointed digs at rich men and needle's eyes were mobilized at about the time wage increases might be expected, then the Federation would turn its attention elsewhere.

      Enclosed orders with vows of poverty were well-tolerated. The occasional person who could not be accommodated would sometimes end up in a pulpit, and would sometimes attract a following. It was very unfortunate that such people could not be coerced into silence by the usual means; they often had a taste for enduring, spectacular martyrdoms.

      But on the bright side, there was a certain complementarity between the Federation's dissidents and its most valued conformists. The Federation had personnel who enjoyed  _performing_  spectacular martyrdoms, and assigning them to do it was cheaper than a benefits plan. Offering pensions to psychopaths can be quite economical--someone,, including them, tends to do for them before normal retirement age--but they do generate a lot of demand for health care and survivor insurance.

      At a time more than two decades before the main events narrated here, the United Federated Catholic Church maintained a few establishments in the domed city with which we have some familiarity.

      The High Church branch, St. Mary the Ever-Virgin, was an extremely plain, indeed architecturally barren, building. The outside was plain beige brick, the windows were plain glass daubed with abstract swirls of transparentish paint by an artist of greater piety than talent.

      Inside, it had the additional oddity of looking like it had been knocked sideways. The altar had to be placed against one of the long walls because that was the one facing East. Didn't know its apse from its elbow. The main sanctuary was one not-terribly-large room, where folding chairs could be arranged for about a hundred people. The usual congregation was in the range of thirty to fifty.

      There was a beautifully needlepointed chair cushion and kneeler for each of the folding chairs--the collection had grown over fifty years or so. There were lovely, but patched because irreplaceable, altar linens.

      Two huge vases of gladioli were provided, in season, by one of St. Mary's most devoted parishioners, Jean Avon. Another one of the most devoted parishioners, her fifteen-year-old son, wished to hell she wouldn't do it, or at least would grow something a little less embarrassing.

      Beneath the sanctuary there were a couple of rooms, in a space that combined the worst features of both basement and crypt. The rooms had to be used for everything except services: paperwork, counseling, catechism, confessions.

      As an honorable and devoted servant of the Church, Father Guinn Vixhill SJ was obligated to hear confessions at the regularly scheduled times. He very much missed the dark, secluded confessionals that he knew were part of the Church's pre-Atomic history.

      He sometimes feared that all too many alleged penitents used the process of auricular confession to purchase their own peace of mind, not for the benefit of their souls through repentance and reconciliation with God. Perhaps gatekeeper mechanisms should be installed somewhere this side of St. Peter.

      In this particular case, the confession was quite unhelpful to Fr. Vixhill's own peace of mind. Through a glass darkly would have suited him perfectly. It was now, face to face, that disturbed him.

      "Not exactly Chartres blooming Cathedral, is it?" They had both seen pictures of Chartres (now it was the Federation's Southwest Region Administrative and Ceremonial Center).

      Father Vixhill sat with his back to a small, grimy window. A little filtered sunshine blazed an aureole behind his auburn hair.

      "That's all the stained glass I need. Now, about my confession..." began the young man who desired several things, but amending his life was not among them.

      "All you have to do is say 'impure thoughts,'" Father Vixhill said. "You don't have to describe them. Knowing you, I'm sure they're a corker."

      "And knowing me, you know who they're about."

      "That brings up the question of who you're worshipping," the priest said. "If it's God through Christ, then go to St. Anselm's."

      "It's Low Church. And ten miles away."

      "You've got a bicycle." And your legs would look all the better for a little more muscle--no, I didn't think that. "And if it's me, then grow up."

      "I don't see what's immature about loving you," Kerr Avon told him. There, that's on the table.

      "I'm a priest. I have committed my life to the celibate service of God. You're a fifteen year old boy. No one ought to be in love with you except a fifteen year old girl."

      "I'm fascinated to hear you recommend that I let Tamzin McCue take me down behind the bicycle sheds to give her one."

      "That's not what I said at all. If you had paid any attention at all to religious instruction..." The only religious doctrine that had any appeal at all to Kerr Avon was eternal damnation (in which he believed completely); repentance, sacrifice, salvation, and much else were just so much holy water off a duck's back.

      "I never fancied Sister Imelda."

      "Then you should have paid all the more attention. I'll do you the compliment of believing that you do care about me in your own way, and that you do know something about me. Being a priest around here is no sinecure, you know."

      "Harder to be a Bishop, with seven planets in the diocese," which explained why Avon had only been confirmed six months earlier. His confirmation name was Mavillon, after St. Mavillon Grex, physicist and martyr. He wanted Galileo, but the Bishop put his foot down about that.

      "Even if I were such a hypocrite that I cared nothing about my own soul--or yours--then you know I can't risk a scandal. Not just for what it would do to me, but because of what people want to believe about the Church.

      And I am no hypocrite. So if you love me, you must want what's for the best, and not want to destroy what is essential about me. Now go away and don't come back. One of us has to leave now and it would be too ridiculous for me to be turfed out of my own church. Tell Jean that you've lost your faith. Tell her that Brian threatened to beat you up if you don't stop coming to church and ruining his career prospects."

      They both behaved bravely. Father Vixhill had the home court advantage. It took him five minutes to get back to his own rooms, find the bottle of vodka, and down enough of it to be grateful that God had granted him a weakness that was not actually a sin.

      Avon needed almost twenty minutes to walk to the school grounds, and climb into the clearing where he went every Wednesday afternoon (when he was supposed to be practicing cross-country running) and when he particularly needed to be alone. Twenty minutes is a very long time to have to wait when you need to throw yourself down on a none-too-comfortable surface and cry for what you vow will be the last time in your life.

      He was sure it was the nicest rejection he would ever get in his life, and in a way that made it worse. All other rejections would be colder and crueler and have less justification behind them.

      Six months later, he was back in the same clearing, carrying the same knapsack. It was remarkable what you could buy in the old market at the center of town.

      In the interim, he had sampled the varying delights provided by Tamzin McCue and Francois Parranzo, the school Advanced Maths master. The latter seemed rather preferable, although he was not prepared to tar an entire gender with the brush of Tamzin McCue. It had to be conceded that Mr. Parranzo possessed advantages such as a comfortable bed rather than a bicycle shed to do it in, and tenure of experience.

      Everything was awful and nothing meant anything. Avon felt like a spy: compelled to continual observation of conventional human behavior, which wasn't really as interesting as its practitioners thought it was, and to vigilance, in case a single slip-up betrayed him.

      A light cold rain was falling. He checked over the ancient projectile weapon, figured out how to get the cylinder open, and put the one bullet that was sold with the gun into the cylinder. He spun the cylinder, slammed it shut, and paused.

      Very well. In less than a minute, I will probably be in Hell. They say Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. I'd just as soon be alone. Not likely to have the choice.

      He put the gun barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The ammunition's probably perished. If I were going to make the experiment really valid, I'd have to pull the trigger five more times.

      Oh, stuff scientific validity. He lay back on the wet grass, surprised at how little he was trembling. He started laughing, not out of happiness or release of tension, but simply because he thought, had to think, how funny the whole thing was. Silence. Exile. Cunning. The highly accentuated need to survive, knowing that in many corners of the Universe there were functional weapons with fresh ammunition.

 

13\. THE END OF THE AFFAIR Avon knew that it wasn't working, that the none-too-salubrious atmosphere on the Liberator had tipped further down the pan. A disparate group of people, generally none too friendly, pointed vaguely in more or less the same direction, had turned into a seething hive, humming with resentment. He had created the problem, and it would be up to him to solve it. To the extent, of course, that binding Blake to a symbiosis of need with a man he would learn to loathe would constitute a solution.

      If he was going to be noble and fall on his sword, the least he could do was fall on someone else's sword as well. So he waited until Blake fell asleep, clothed himself in careful disarray, and walked down the B Deck corridor to Vila's cabin. Vila was just on the point of deciding whether to try to sleep or concede that he probably wouldn't, when Avon knocked on the door.

      "May I stay?" Avon asked.

      Vila gazed into the air, looking for swirls or energy disturbances or theremin music--anything to indicate extreme turbulence in the space-time continuum. There didn't seem to be anything in the cabin that was broken. Well, his heart, but he'd just as soon Avon didn't get a laser probe into that.

      "What for?" Vila asked, unable to look up.

      "I've seen you looking at me," Avon said. Vila would have predicted those words, but not to hear them spoken so gently. He had never let himself engage in unrestrained fantasies, but could sometimes just about imagine Avon using his body contemptuously. The fantasies had not included tentative fingertips on his cheek. "I thought that it would please you."

      There must be a catch, Vila thought. No, not just the catch that would be holding my shirt closed if...

      "You might like to stand up," Avon said, and opened Vila's shirt and caressed the notch between his collarbones, then moved his hand down and across to Vila's ribs.

      What a soft kiss. How could it go so deep? Lips and tongue and just the barest dent of teeth repeating the trajectory of his hand. Kerr Avon on his knees. Must be some kind of send-up, any minute now a vid crew would burst in, laughing themselves silly, waving banners and crepe paper streamers. When a poor man gets to eat a whole chicken, one of them is sick.

      Although Vila often acquired goods and services without paying for them in cash or valuables, he believed deeply that for anything deeper, you pay for what you get. In fact, you quite often have to pay for gear that was ordered by and delivered to someone else, but charged to your account. So even though you need to hold to your suspicions, often they're the only thing keeping you alive, you need to take every bit of happiness that's on offer. You're going to have the hangover anyway, might as well get drunk first.

      Nothing in Vila's cabin needed fixing, but it appeared that one of the Liberator's radiation monitors was slightly mis-calibrated. Appeared being the operative word, Avon never saw the point of actually crawling around interfering with sensors when a mere eight lines of computer code would generate a malfunction alarm.

      When the alarm went off, Blake woke up, snapped his fingers to turn the lights on, and checked the communicator read-out. Malfunction, noncritical, single detector device in Bank 19.

      Well, at least I won't have to go far to get some advice, he thought. Then he noticed that his bunk was suspiciously uncrowded. He pulled a pair of trousers over his pajamas, put on a pair of slippers, and headed out to Bank 19. Avon wasn't there. Blake went to C Deck in case Avon was picking up some tools from his former cabin. Empty. Blake flicked on the wall communicator. The readout said that the page was answered from Cabin B23. Vila's cabin. The digital clock said that it was 3:23 a.m.

      "Right," Blake said, clenching his fingers against the wall covering near the intercom. "I'm not the idiot you take me for, and I wasn't lying. Go fix that detector, and stay out of your cabin for the next twenty minutes or so. I'll be moving your gear back there. Stay out my way as much as possible after that. When I see you in Hell, I'll spit in your face."

      "The last bit is good," Avon said. "I don't think I could do better myself." Communication was broken.

      "You used me," Vila said.

      "People very commonly do use other people."

      "You treated me as a pawn."

      "Think how much more often a pawn gets held in those nice big hands. Touched far more often than a rook or a bishop."

      "You'd screw a snake if....

      "I could overcome the incest taboo. All right, you needn't throw me out, I'm leaving of my own volition."

      Jenna certainly benefited in the short run. She and Cally never did have time to bond over this experience. Perhaps, later on, Cally's feelings toward Avon softened in part because of Jenna's greater success in this regard.

      Avon returned to observing matters that were too difficult, and too dangerous, to participate in.

      THE END


End file.
